I recently worked with the ladies of the Maine Roller Derby on a project that resulted in some great images. I had a lot of fun shooting group and individual images of the group and can’t wait to shoot more of them in August. If you haven’t been to one of their bouts at the Portland Expo….just know: these ladies bring it. Just look at that intensity.
rollerdolls - Images by Brian Fitzgerald
Misconceptions abound when it comes to copyright of intellectual property, especially photography. Photographers typically think that they automatically own the copyright to their work and thus are protected when their images are used without permission. This sense of security–while based in fact–is somewhat misplaced.
A comprehensive discussion of copyright law is a topic for another time. Suffice to say that there are many reasons why professional photographers (those making a living at photography and want to continue to do so in the future) should copyright their work: One is that the most you can collect for a copyright infringement is the value of the image itself if the image has not been registered with the US Copyright Office. If a registered work is infringed upon, lawyers fees and statutory damages may be collected. Two, having registered work gives the copyright holder protection and leverage when negotiating disputes with publishers of their work. This can help with resolving slow- or non-paying customer issues.
It’s recommended that any photographer copyright their work prior to distribution or publication. Clients who purchase copyright from photographers (the so-called ‘buy-out’) should consider registering the work they own as well. To find out more about why copyright registration is important, check out the explanation posted on the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). It’s easy to register electronically at the US Copyright office. Lastly, there’s a great tutorial for photographers on the ASMP site on registering photography work online.
I’ve been looking forward to July for quite some time now. Only recently, however, did I get official word that I’d be part of this year’s Flashes of Hope event at Camp Sunshine in Casco, Maine. Hundreds of professional photographers from around the country donate their time and talent to take portraits of children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, mostly at hospitals. The images themselves become a cherished gift to children and their families. Last year was my first experience and it was pretty unforgettable.
Local commercial photographer Kevin Brusie organized the Maine event, which takes place at Camp Sunshine in July and in August. I’m honored to be a part of this group, which besides Kevin Brusie includes Jeff Stevensen, Fred Field, Bill Truslow, Dean Abramson and Scott Dorrance.
“Branding” is one of those words that seem to be applied to everything, and with good reason. Every bit of text, every graphic, every image that conveys both positive and negative information about your company or your person is affecting your ‘brand’.
Are you still using that two-year-old portrait to represent you or your business? Worse, are you a brand fanatic when it comes to your website and printed materials but have a Facebook page featuring you holding a beer at last July’s block party?
Now more than ever, brands need to be professional and consistently applied. You need to look your best wherever on the Internet that Google directs your potential clients–and competitors.
Any business or individual wanting to have an immediate, positive impact to their branding should analyze their brand’s visual footprint around the internet and then devise a plan to prop up the places where their brand might show some wear. This process can be as simple as getting an updated portrait or other images that gets systematically applied.
Several of our clients update their portraits up to six times a year, keeping things fresh, professional and always new. While that may not be your cup of tea, revisiting your visuals annually or every other year is a good idea.
You can easily get updates on Brian’s work or hear what we’re up to by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter. We send out a detailed quarterly summary of our studio news and eight times a year we send out our “One Shot” email featuring some of our latest and favorite work.
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Everyone who relies on Facebook and other social media sites to market their brand and news needs to keep things fresh. That’s why I enjoy working with the McGowan for Maine campaign. I did some work with them in December and got some portraits of an active-looking Pat McGowan at his Hallowell home. Back then, the entire campaign could fit around his kitchen table. Things have changed, and he’s worked hard to get to the point he is at now. Trouble is, a portrait showing a foot of snow doesn’t fly when the thermometer is knocking on 90 degrees. So, we got a whole new round of portraits and other images for the campaign that’ll work well for them for a long time to come. It’s been great working with McGowan…but how does he get the energy?
There’s a tagline at the bottom of my business card: “Image Matters”. Sounds obvious, right? Still, too often, many businesses who take such great care to take care of customers, or to produce a great product or service neglect to attend to their visual brand image. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got when first launching my own business was to develop a good relationship with a good designer. I have, and I know many others I trust and like as well. This decision has made my life easier and continues to bring me clients. In short, these visual professionals make my brand into something that is consistent and professional. Now I’m free to do what I do best–take great images for my business clients.
Businesspeople often assume that custom photography of the sort that is commissioned and shot specifically for their needs is too expensive. But you don’t necessarily need a big wallet to have the same quality images that you see used by Bangor Savings Bank, L.L. Bean, or other large to medium-sized companies. Working with an experienced business photographer who you like, who understands your industry and who can help you plan the best usage for your images can be a rewarding experience and one that is affordable. It’s possible to get an affordable image library of custom stock imagery created for your company’s use for years to come.
So when I see small companies and business individuals settling for less-than exciting visuals, or generic stock images, I want to tell them: Image Matters!
This week has been marked on my calendar for many months now. Tomorrow my patient and understanding wife will take me to the jetport extra early where I’ll board a flight to Seattle. I’ll be there a week, where I’ll stay with one of my oldest and best friends and get to see some others from our old home.
It’s ironic that with the weather so nice in Portland that I’m going to a place where the weather is rainy. But, I’m on vacation. We’ll be heading to Leavenworth, Washington (a bizarre but cool little Bavarian-themed town tucked into some of the most beautiful scenery you’ll ever see) to do some hiking and camping. There, in the rainshadow of the Cascades, it’ll be cold but dry.
The trip isn’t all fun; it’s business, too. While there I’ll be attending a couple photography seminars and spending time with a great magazine photographer, Brian Smale. I’ll also have an opportunity to work on a personal photography project–the subject of which will be part of a later post.
If you took an image but can’t find it when you need it, does it matter that it exists?
Last week, I got an email from a magazine editor trying to locate an image I took of the owner of a very unique sculpture. The problem? I had taken the photos for the San Francisco Chronicle–on film–on a very fast deadline. In Scottsdale, Arizona. Ten years ago. All of the workflow systems and archiving processes I’ve developed that work well for me now were not even a glimmer in my eye back then.
Good that things do change. Workflow and secure archiving are something I’ve worked hard to make a strength of mine. The two together, known as DAM (digital asset management) should be the rock upon which any professional photographer’s business is built.
Do you have a good system for archiving your work and locating it again? In my contracts with clients, I state that I’m not responsible for storage and retrieval of client images…but let’s be honest here. My clients aren’t photographers; I am. They don’t have thousands of dollars of computer storage and software dedicated to backing up everything three times and locating it in seconds. I do; so the reality is that I can and will do whatever my clients need.
So if last year’s client calls me because their CD walked away, or if (more likely) they need an image re-outputted for poster size rather than web delivery, I can do what I enjoy doing…and that’s helping them out instead of digging through endless files on my desktop.
Visitors to www.fitzgeraldphoto.com may have noticed some big changes recently to our site.
After ten years of Flash-based sites, we’ve gone a new direction with site utilizing html, css and javascript. If you’re techie, that means something. If you’re not, it means this: our site loads faster, it’ll work on your iphone and it loses none of the whiz-bang visual effect that Flash provided.
There’s also lots of good work to view–much of it new. If you like what you see, please follow us on Twitter or Facebook by clicking on the links on the front page. You’ll be up on the latest Fitzgerald Photo news almost as soon as we are.
